Paul Ceglia - the alleged half-owner of Facebook - has enlisted yet another lawyer in his increasingly desperate case brought against Mark Zuckerberg.
The latest attorney to represent Ceglia has reportedly been ordered, in a separate suit, to cough up $300,000 after he "morphed" stock images of minors and used them to defend …

Register gets it wrong again.

As opposed to bungling anything, check out Dean Boland's comments about this case and his standing up for the rights of wrongfully accused defendants across America. http://bolandlegal.com/site/important-fair-trial-decision-from-northern-district-of-ohio

It's a bit of a stretch, but the idea is that other people see the fiddled pictures of the child, recognize the child and start to treat the kid* as though (s)he was fiddled instead. And then, to stretch the imagination further, the child* starts to feel ashamed of the fiddled pictures, instead of just annoyed about the whole farce.

Of course, if the media find out who the kid is, then they show up with photographers, reporters and camera men and make a big deal out of the fiddled pictures and the child*, but no so much that the pictures were fiddled and not the kid. So, soon everyone in town recognizes the kid* as "The Fiddled Kid" and everybody treats him/her funny, cause they're all sure (s)he's gonna go postal one day from the stress of being fiddled.

And then one day, the kid* goes to get a job. But a quick search on Google turns up the fiddled pictures of the kid and the recruiter decides it's just not worth the publicity to hire a fiddled kid* and tosses the resume without a second thought.

I did say it was a stretch, but it's possible... thoretically. ...Actually, the later parts of that actually seem rather likely after all.

Not so much of a stretch, really. It certainly happens to adults with 'fake' porn pictures which often aren't labelled as such, so a search for pictures of them returns some 'fiddled' ones. And in many jobs having such pictures on the web can mean that you don't even get to the interview stage (unless it's interviews for starring in porn movies!).

Remember that in both the US and the UK "child porn" is defined as 17 year olds and younger, not just infants, and those are likely to be very recognisable many years later.

Right...

All that would apply *if* they were where being spread around the internet not just shown in a courtroom, presumably preceded by something like "Now ladies and gentleman of the jury, I have doctored these photos to illustrate..."

The legal view is that fantasizing about violating minors is never a good idea, under any circumstances. I'd say that's a reasonable viewpoint, and would rather not hear your personal reasons to the contrary, as I'd like to sleep tonight.

Fantasise about what you whatever you can do with a type of individuals who can give their consent, but not without those who can never --- animals and children.

@Marvin the Martian

Whatever anyone fantasises about is their own business, as long as no-one is hurt by it. A person can fantasise about minors, animals, plants, or you as long as that does not hurt anyone else. In the mind, consent is an irrelevant issue.

"The legal view is that fantasizing about violating minors is never a good idea, under any circumstances"

Please point to what lawyers have stated this "legal view", their qualifications, and in what jurisdiction.

"those who can never [give consent] --- animals and children"

Define 'children'. In the US, that's anyone under 18 (for actual sex), but in the UK it's 16, and in some countries not far away from us it's 14 (in some further away it's even younger). Then there are the laws about pictures which mean that it's fine for a 16 year old couple to have sex (and have children) as long as they don't take pictures of each other until they are 18. And then there are even laws which say that if a person -- or even a totally imaginary drawing -- /looks/ under 18 it's illegal to take unclothed pictures of them.

Which of those would you say can and cannot give consent -- and which countries' courts would agree or disagree with you?

As for fantasies, until someone develops a way of reading minds reliably they belong to the person fantasising. If they want to fantasise about sex with whatever, that's their own business and no one else's. Or if they want to fantasise about killing whoever, or blowing things up, or anything else. There is no evidence that fantasising about such things causes actions, and actions alone are punishable.

Yeah, no, that's not the "legal view" at all, at least not in the US. That's the popular view, which is quite a different thing. The legal justification for banning child pornography despite the first amendment was based on the harm presumably caused by production, not a thoughtcrime on the viewer's part.